As China advances its Global Development Initiative through the United Nations, it is increasingly shaping discussions around the post-2030 development agenda. While the initiative raises legitimate concerns over transparency and strategic intent, it also highlights the absence of a comparable U.S. vision for the future of global development governance.

Competition for access to resources has been a major driver of conflict in the South China Sea. The discovery of offshore oil in the 1970s triggered a scramble for land features to bolster claims to territory and sovereign rights over underwater fossil fuels. Dwindling fishing stocks in coastal areas pushed fishers into distant waters, entangling them in jurisdictional disputes. However, the rise of renewable energy and modern aquaculture may reduce the role of resources as a trigger for tensions in the semi-enclosed sea. The increasing share of hydro, wind, and solar power in the national energy mixes of coastal states, along with their ambitious energy transition targets, may diminish foreign investors' appetite for capital-intensive deep-water hydrocarbon exploration and development projects, especially in maritime spaces with significant political and security risks. Aquaculture is also displacing wild catch as the main contributor to total fisheries production in most coastal countries. The integration of aquaculture and offshore green energy is in its early stages and presents opportunities for practical cooperation among coastal states.

China has developed an expanding network of minilateral and multilateral mechanisms across South Asia that institutionalize its regional influence while remaining separate from, but strategically linked to, its approach toward India. The architecture underscores how Beijing uses parallel diplomatic tracks to strengthen its long-term regional position, with implications for India, the United States, and other partners.

The U.S.-Iran conflict and Trump’s tendency to weaponize the dollar are hastening attempts by China to de-dollarize oil and gas markets, boosting the use of the ‘petro-yuan’, while pushing the EU to resurrect plans to strengthen the euro on the global stage. A tripolar monetary order is emerging, in which the dollar would be ‘first among equals’ and the renminbi, and the euro, would have their rightful place, commensurate with their importance in the global economy.

Changing demographics relating to the economy have raised righteous concerns in stories about China, Japan, even the United States. Europe hasn’t come under the same scrutiny, but a closer look reveals adjacent hurdles coming in the next decade. Europe seems unprepared for these changes and remains focused on restoring its former global standing rather than adapting to a new reality in which other powers continue to pull ahead.

Chinese firms have achieved global leadership in industries once assumed to be the preserve of advanced economies: electric vehicles, batteries, industrial robots, solar panels, and AI—to name just a few. The standard explanation for this success is that the Chinese state subsidizes production, an argument that has now been given the institutional weight of a major OECD report.

Competition in artificial intelligence is a contest across the entire industrial value chain. Only by advancing open innovation, ensuring security and trust, promoting inclusive development and strengthening global governance can AI contribute to shared global prosperity.

China's latest push to internationalize the renminbi is driven less by ambitions to challenge the U.S. dollar's global dominance than by efforts to build a more resilient financial system that reduces dependence on Western-led financial infrastructure and strengthens China's strategic autonomy amid growing geopolitical competition.

The current USMCA review is expected to introduce new China-related restrictive provisions across four key areas: labor enforcement, rules of origin, economic security coordination and external tariff alignment. Taken together, these measures would substantially narrow market access for Chinese capital, goods and technology in North America.

The 2026 oil crisis revealed a transformed China: no longer just the world's largest oil importer and refiner, but a state actor deploying stockpiles, export controls, and strategic opacity to shape global energy markets on its own terms.